Episode 681: Authenticity is The Secret to Long-Term Success (+How to Pivot as a Veteran Blogger) With Megan Keno

EBT681 – Megan Keno

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported. 

Supercut  00:37

Hey there food bloggers. Check out our new finance supercut. This is a bonus 15 minute episode capturing highlights from finance episodes that we have recorded recently on the podcast. Head to eatblogtalk.com/financesupercut to listen today.

[00:00:55] Megan Porta   

Do you know how some of those most of those longtime OG bloggers are just so wise and mature in the business world and encouraging and kind and generous with their information that they have to share and their value? This is definitely the case with Megan Keno. She’s the blogger at Homemade Home. She’s been blogging for 15 long years and oh my goodness, does she have a journey and story to share that you can learn from? We can all learn from no matter where we’re at on the scope of our blogging journeys. If you are a new blogger, you will find encouragement and hope here and if you’re an old blogger like she is, you will also find encouragement and hope.

[00:01:44]   

 She talks a lot about using your old content to get traction now, also leaning on some tried and true methods that you learn over the years and one thing that she touches on multiple times throughout the episode is authenticity and how important it is and how authenticity got her so many cool opportunities that she’s going to talk about inside the interview.

[00:02:10]   

 Listen all the way to the end because there are some really cool things that she’s done inside of her business. Also at the end, Megan gives you very pointed questions to think through if you’re needing that extra motivation just to keep going, this is episode number 681 and I hope you love it.

[00:02:31]  Sponsor

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[00:03:11]  Megan Porta

Megan Keno is The creator and CEO of Homemade Home, a veteran 15 year old food blog focused on everyday elevated dishes and cast iron cooking. Megan is also a cast member of season four of Fox’s Next Level Chef with Gordon Ramsay. Oh, yeah. And he has her cookbook. Hello, Megan. Welcome to the podcast. How are you?

[00:03:33]  Megan Keno 

 Hi. I’m wonderful. I’m so happy to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me

[00:03:39]  Megan Porta 

 And it’s not often that there are two Megans on the screen. So double Megan today and two Megans.

[00:03:46]  Megan Keno 

 Two Megans without an H. I know. Even more rare.

[00:03:51]  Megan Porta 

 I know. Or have you noticed in the blogging space that there are so many varieties of Megan spellings? There’s a bunch of Megans, but it’s like there’s M E, G, G a N and M E G G E N and of course the H thrown in there occasionally. So.

[00:04:08]  Megan Keno 

 And then I’ve seen M E A’s, M E a G H. I’m like, oh my gosh.

[00:04:13]  Megan Porta 

 Quite a variety. Well, it’s great to have you here. I’m super excited to talk about your journey. As a veteran OG food blogger, I think your story is going to be so inspiring for so many. Before we get into that though, do you have a fun fact to share with us?

[00:04:31]  Megan Keno 

 Oh, fun fact. So this is a way back machine kind of fun fact. Before I even started blogging, while I was in college, I used to be a competitive lumberjack.

[00:04:43]  Megan Porta 

 Whoa. Yeah.

[00:04:45]  Megan Keno 

 Everybody’s like, what you? I’m like, yeah. Yes. It’s true. I used to throw axes for fun, but I used to be a competitive lumberjack. It’s true.

[00:04:56]  Megan Porta 

 Wow. Okay. Do you still dabble in that or is it something that’s way in your past?

[00:05:01]  Megan Keno 

 It’s kind of in my past now, unfortunately. I miss it very much. But a few herniated discs later, I just kind of had to hang up my axes. I still have them. I. They are still in my garage. My husband’s like, can we get rid of these? I’m like, no, no, never.

[00:05:15]  Megan Porta 

 Absolutely not. Don’t ever get rid of those.

[00:05:19]  Megan Keno 

 Can’t do it.

[00:05:20]  Megan Porta 

 No. That is so awesome. I love that you did that. How long did you do that for?

[00:05:26]  Megan Keno 

 I did it for about five years.

[00:05:28]  Megan Porta 

 Whoa.

[00:05:29]  Megan Keno 

 Five years? Yeah. It was a lot of fun I just met some of the most amazing, quirky, interesting people and it’s just, it’s so obscure. But like the, the, the timber sports community is a strong one.

[00:05:42]  Megan Porta 

 Oh my gosh. Isn’t that funny how those little communities, you don’t even know they, and then when you find them, they’re super tight knit, I imagine. Oh yeah, it’s one of those just tight knit communities. Yeah, that’s great. Okay, well, Lumberjack Megan, let’s get to our talk today. You are multifaceted. So you also have this amazing food blog that you’ve had for a very long time. Homemade Home is what it’s called. So give us the background on your blog.

[00:06:08]  Megan Keno 

 So I started Homemade Home actually as a rebrand back in 2021, but from 2010, for 11, almost 12 years, I was known as Country Cleaver. It was a way for me to really harness my love of primarily baking that. That is my go to and just share that with people and kind of like the timber sports community.

[00:06:29]   

 The food blogging community is also incredibly strong. And going through this journey, discovering my love of food and cooking and primarily cast iron cooking, it just gave me a real vehicle to deep dive into this knowledge base that I have just become so engrossed in and inspire people to try something new and different and even scary by just taking that intimidation factor out of it.

[00:06:57]   

 And you know, the rebrand gave me an opportunity to kind of expand my horizons a little bit into different avenues, whether it was homemaking, homesteading, I have chickens, any of those other things that just interested me. But my tried and true one love is absolutely cooking and baking.

[00:07:15]  Megan Porta 

 So you’ve carried with that through all of these years. So after the rebrand, did you stick with the same themes in the same niche?

[00:07:23]  Megan Keno 

 I think so. I think I’ve really tried to make everything a little more everyday elevated is kind of how I like to say it. It’s not necessarily country cooking, which is what I really started. Country Cleaver based around, but just doing things, mostly still in cast iron because it’s my one true love, but just making dishes that are easy and approachable, but that have that elevated flair for everyone. I’m a busy mom of two. I work full time, I run a food blog, I have chickens. I’ve got 15 things going in my life, but I still really like homemade food. That’s just a little something extra.

[00:08:03]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. That’s really cool that you’ve managed to carry some themes with you through all these years, because 15 years is a long time to Keep blogging. How do you feel about that? Does that feel just rewarding? Does it feel like a little bit in disbelief.

[00:08:19]  Megan Keno 

A little bit of all of it? You know, it’s. I never. I never wanted to set limits on what I was going to do with the blog, whether that was the duration of the blog, the theme of the blog, any of that. It was always with this mindset of just say yes, just do what felt natural to me, and keeping this comforting flair as a central theme through the blog.

[00:08:43]   

 No matter which style of cooking I had or what my medium was, as long as it was warm and authentic and myself, that made this entire journey easy and it made it approachable and it gave me. It kind of built in a sustainability because I wasn’t trying to do something that I wasn’t.

[00:09:05]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I know it’s hard to carry a blog so long. I think even people who are blogging now, who’ve been blogging, say six years, they feel like that’s a long time. So. You’re one of the true OGs, Megan, and I imagine you have a ton of content. How much content do you have?

[00:09:28]  Megan Keno 

 I’ve got over 1300 posts.

[00:09:30]  Megan Porta 

 Okay.

[00:09:31]  Megan Keno 

 And it’s a lot. I mean, I think I hit a thousand posts about six or seven years ago, just before my son was born. And that felt like a real big milestone. And I think the frequency might have changed in terms of how often I’m posting just because life is life. But making sure that I have maintained quality content through that time, I think is my one goal with all of it, is not churning out content for the sake of content, because that comes across as inauthentic and kitschy and that’s just not who I am.

[00:10:08]   

 But making sure that what I produce for people to read and consume is meaningful and they know that the time and the love, just like if I put it on a plate in front of them in person, it’s still there. So I think just maintaining that high standard of quality has. Has carried. Carried me through.

[00:10:27]  Megan Porta 

 There’s so much weight in maintaining high quality. And like you said, just pumping out content just to do it never serves a blogger well. I don’t feel like it just doesn’t.

[00:10:38]  Megan Keno 

 You’re either going to fight against, keep, keep fighting this churn for content just to keep up with trends. And it’s not good for your mental health either. I don’t think we put so much of our time, effort, mental energy, emotion into what we do. And so to just do it for doing it sake doesn’t serve us and it doesn’t serve our readers or our consumers because frankly, they are our clients.

[00:11:03]   

 They are our consumers. It doesn’t serve them well either. So I think that as long as you can take a measured approach in whatever you’re doing, you will get the longevity out of it without sacrificing yourself or, you know, your end product as well.

[00:11:20]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. Trusting the process of it. Right. And just allowing it to be a long game and having faith in yourself, having faith in the long game, I think is so powerful.

[00:11:32]  Megan Keno 

 Absolutely.

[00:11:33]  Megan Porta 

 So you have a ton of content. How do you use the older content to serve your business? I imagine you do repurposing and updating and all of that.

[00:11:44]  Megan Keno 

 Yeah. You know, a lot of the time spent. I would love to be able to leverage a full time copywriter in the background, you know, but that’s not the reality of my blog or what I’m able to focus on. Focus on is I am the one doing the updating of content, whether it’s updating posts for current SEO and to make it Google friendly, because honestly, that’s something we just have to do.

[00:12:10]   

 I would rather be cooking, but I know that as part of playing that long game, it’s, it’s making sure the content stays relevant. It’s taking the new photos that were taken 12 years ago where styles have changed, techniques have changed. Honestly, the visualization has changed. So it’s using that and saying, okay, I’m gonna update three recipes over this week that I can slowly roll out and then one new one.

[00:12:36]   

 Because you know that you’ve got all of this good stuff built up in the background for this old content. It just needs to be leveraged. And, and that’s something that can be very frustrating to feel like you’re just stuck in, in the past, but knowing that there can be content gold already there and it just needs a little extra polish. I mean, it, it helps a lot and it helps save you some brain power from constantly dreaming up new ideas that you have to go and test and start from scratch on.

[00:13:09]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. And really I get that whole concept of being stuck in the past because it’s like, wait, I want to be doing new stuff. Why would I go back and do redo things that I’ve already done? But you can see your old content as fresh, new pieces to serve your blog. I think if you change your perspective on that just a little bit, it becomes exciting. Like, I can put a new spin. I often go to my old recipes and I realize, oh, I could have added lemon Juice here. And that would make the recipe so much better. You can make little tweaks and like you said, the visuals have changed. Everything has changed. So you can create a whole new piece of content from an old piece of content, which is really cool.

[00:13:53]  Megan Keno 

 Yeah. And not to mention your readers today weren’t your readers from 10 years ago. You know, so it’s like the people 10 years ago may have seen it once or twice, they might have seen it when Pinterest was actually Pinterest, they might have saved it, but they’ve forgotten about it. So you’ve got this amazing, you know, repository of gold that just means just a little bit of a shine on it and you can breathe a little bit of new air into it for a whole new audience now.  Like the game has changed from 15 years ago. It was everything in your feedly feed and you saw everything that people published. And now with social media, you have a whole new, an untapped audience for this existing content.

[00:14:37]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, yeah. That’s another cool perspective, is that you can reuse old content on different platforms too. So you can use it on Instagram and YouTube and.

[00:14:46]  Megan Keno 

 Yeah.

[00:14:47]  Megan Porta 

 And TikTok. And it’s not just your blog that you have to keep your content on anymore.

[00:14:52]  Megan Keno 

 Exactly. And that’s always a plus or minus. It’s always a pro or con because it means we do spread ourselves a little more thin in some ways, like we have to keep up with those trends. But doing you can do it in a way that you’re not going to kill yourself over it.

[00:15:08]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Things are always changing in our industry. Sometimes it feels like from day to day, honestly, or week to week, it’s like, oh, my gosh, this is different than last week. How did that happen? Are there, is there anything in your business that you feel has stayed the same that you can kind of, I don’t know, lean on or go back to or rely on? Does that make sense?

[00:15:30]  Megan Keno 

 I think, honestly, it’s just the thread of authenticity sticking with what you are most passionate about is going to get you, like you said, to play the long game. I think that that’s, that’s something that’s always served me is I might not be churning out 15 pieces of new content. It might not be what’s going to go mega viral on TikTok, but for me, just consistency is key. Whether that’s consistency in your food themes or your blog themes or your posting content, everything is about moderation and consistency. I would rather be the turtle than the hare in this instance.

[00:16:08]  Megan Porta 

 I’m just writing that down. I think it’s so simple, but I think if everyone took on that perspective, they would just stay in the game longer and grow so much more quickly. Everyone wants to be the hair, they want to do it fast, they want the fast success.

[00:16:24]  Megan Keno 

 Exactly. And I think that we’ll get to the people that I have grown with my business and the different perspectives I’ve seen, but people that are solely in the social media sphere who have done that, done, done the hard work too, just like I have with the blog and they’re primarily focused on TikTok. It’s like we still have to work at it. Nothing. There is something, yes, very great and lucrative about overnight success, but if you don’t have the, if you have not built the foundation, it will be more likely to crumble much more quickly. You know, you can’t just put something out on TikTok and Instagram and expect to go viral and that for that to be sustainable, you don’t want to be a flash in the pan. And that’s where building up that foundation is going to be your most successful. The most successful piece of your work I think is just making sure you’ve got the building blocks to make it a long term success instead of a, you know, one hit wonder.

[00:17:22]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, that’s well said. How have you dealt with the changes in platforms over the years? So the focus on Instagram, TikTok, whatever it might be, how have you kind of navigated that?

[00:17:33]  Megan Keno 

 You know, I think for me I’ve dabbled in just about everything, you know, whether it’s social media based or, you know, then there’s these, not algorithm sites but sites you can put your content to, develop your Instacart or help get your messages out there and stuff. And you know, honestly for me, I think the thing is, is finding one of them that you can put some effort into.

[00:17:56]   

 You know, what are your end goals? Is it to get out in front of the most amount of people the quickest? TikTok’s probably your thing. Is it to get in front of brands? Yeah, Instagram brands really lean heavily on Instagram. They see more value there, you know, whatever that is. Find your niche that serves you best and that frankly the one that you enjoy the most. Where are you spending your time scrolling and put your, put your time into that because then you’re going to find your people, your target audience that’s, that’s going to receive your content. Well, I always say, you know, if I’m going to spend my time somewhere, I want to enjoy it. For me, it’s Instagram.

[00:18:34]   

 I’m old school like that. I have TikTok, but that’s, that’s just not where I choose to spend my time as a consumer of content. So that’s probably not where I want to be putting my time as a driver of content. That’s probably not my audience. So from my perspective, it’s just, where do you naturally spend your time as a consumer and then go, oh, that’s probably where I should be putting my time as a creator.

[00:19:01]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. Do you feel like trying to spend your time on every platform is a recipe for disaster, burnout and all the bad things burnout.

[00:19:10]  Megan Keno 

I mean the, the comparison game is hard enough as it is because you see people that are doing, you know, going mega viral on TikTok. Oh my gosh, I should be spending my time there. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. What is your style? Do you like a more curated experience? Do you like creating content? Whether that’s recipes and photo carousels and reels that are heavily curated and like lifestyle driven? Instagram is probably more your thing. Do you want flash in the pan? Big, flashy, fast content? TikTok might be more your thing. You know, I think it’s, don’t do something that isn’t authentic to you. And I think that that’s where it comes is if you spread yourself too thin, you’re going to create too many versions of yourself that are so watered down that you’re not going to be you anymore.

 And frankly, I don’t have the mental capacity to be doing that kind of churn that doesn’t, it doesn’t serve me well. I don’t feel good about it at the end of the day. And even if it’s one video that I can splash across all platforms, where’s your cost benefit analysis? What are your main drivers here? And I think spreading yourself too thin is going to create more of a watered down experience and lead to a lot of heartbreak in the end for.

[00:20:30]  Megan Porta 

 You and for your user. I think all around it’s a lose, lose situation when you set yourself up like that. Yeah, you’ve mentioned authenticity a few times and as an OG blogger myself, I feel like there have been times through, throughout my experience, food blogging where it’s hard to lean into authenticity. Whether it’s, I don’t know, Google has another update and there’s worry spread around our community or Pinterest algorithm changes again, like every time our industry is hit. I feel like the authenticity piece is like, oh, I have to build this up again. Do you ever feel that?

[00:21:10]  Megan Keno 

 All the time. All the time. And that’s where I think the tortoise and the hare comparison comes in. It’s because, okay, I’ve, I’ve tried to be friends with Google. I have tried to do everything that they have expected or told me to do to make sure that my content is received, you know, but and this is where I would rather slow down, not kill myself over SEO. And, And I feel myself doing that sometimes. And it’s hard to go, oh, my gosh, all I’m doing is writing for SEO. I could have Chat GPT do this for me. Like, I don’t. Why am I, Why am I doing this if I don’t have a story to tell?

[00:21:52]   

 If my readers don’t know who I am at the end of the day, is my content? Is my time worth it? And that’s when I go, okay, where is the balance of keeping up with these updates, with the constant churn of these updates for any platform, versus staying true to my authentic self?Yes, we have to work to stay in Google’s good graces. We do. It’s an unavoidable part of what we do. But doing that at the sacrifice of our content and our brands, because we are brands, isn’t going to get us very far when we lose that part of ourselves and our ability to create stories.

[00:22:34]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, and slowing down, you’ve said that a few times, too. I know that can look different for everyone. What does that mean for you when you say slow down? What does that look like?

[00:22:43]  Megan Keno 

So I think a natural means for me, slowing down was starting my family. I’ve got two young boys and they do require a lot, bless them. And if I could spend all my time in the kitchen, I would. But slowing down, it means I’m not posting everything that I’m cooking in the kitchen.It means being very intentional with what I create and saying, okay, I don’t have anything new that has inspired me, or, I made this for dinner, but I’m not going to make it, like, literally the next day just to photograph it. I might wait a couple weeks. I might just pause on this so I can absorb it. Think about it first. Is this something that would resonate? Is this something that spoke to me and then post it? Like, I’ve got backlog content that I think would be really great on social media, but it doesn’t serve me well on my blog. You know, it’s not. It’s not a full recipe.
  

 It’s going for Instagram views. There’s just days that I’m like, I don’t think that that doesn’t resonate with me as a creator. And so I don’t think it’s going to resonate with people as a consumer either. So there are days where you have to decide, what does this content serve? Is it me, my audience, or no one? And then that’s okay. It’s okay to say, no, this just doesn’t feel right. And, and say to yourself, I don’t need to post it for the sake of posting it. I can slow down and show people the things that actually matter with whatever value you calculate that at.

[00:24:18]  Sponsor 

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[00:24:46] Megan Porta  

 Do you remember the days? I remember the days early on where it was like I had the energy and ambition to do everything and post everything and like, how did I even survive? How did my brain not just explode into a million bits, like, slide out my ears?

[00:25:02]  Megan Keno 

 Because I, I don’t. Like, in the early days, I literally remember my, my now husband. We’ve been married for 12 years. We were still dating, but we lived on opposite sides of the state. I would come home, I’d walk the dog after a day at the office, I’d go cook something, photograph it in my dark apartment and post it every single day.

[00:25:21]   

 Yeah, I’m like, this isn’t sustainable. I was 24, 25. I’m like, what are you doing? I had the time, I had the energy, but it wasn’t the quality content that I know would have served me well in the long run. And that’s where that burnout came in. That’s where that lack of, I don’t want to say integrity, but churn the churn for churn’s sake came, came in and it’s like, no, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve got a life to live too. I have to have a life to live to tell a story about it. Because if I don’t do that, what are we doing?

[00:26:00]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, and with an aging blog comes wisdom, I think, and just kind of like blogger maturity. You just know which things are going to serve you and which things are going to serve your user, which things are going to serve your business. So I, it is a matter of letting it play out too. Like, no matter how old you are, when you start blogging, there is a blogging wisdom that comes with just staying in the game.

[00:26:25]  Megan Keno 

 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I was, I was literally talking with my husband about this this morning. And I, I mean, I work full time. I’m, I’m fortunate enough to have a full time job where the blog is kind of like the hobby. I mean, when we talk about the things that I have done because of my blog, it is not a hobby.

[00:26:45]   

 This is another job. But we kind of joke that I wouldn’t continue to do this if I didn’t love it so much. To get the longevity out of it and to become this, like, og you have to stay in the game and you have to still love, truly love what you do. Because if you don’t, there’s, there’s no point. It’s going to come out and it’s going to come across to your readers that you, you’re just not in it. You don’t have the heart for it.

[00:27:15]  Megan Porta 

 So readers are smart. They know if you’re in it or not.

[00:27:19]  Megan Keno 

 They know.

[00:27:20]  Megan Porta 

 You can’t hide that.

[00:27:23]  Megan Keno 

 No, because they, they will be the first ones to call you out on it too. I mean, people do not hold people behind a keyboard, do not hold their opinions back.

[00:27:31]  Megan Porta 

 They don’t hold back.

[00:27:32]  Megan Keno 

 So. So if, if you don’t, they will smell that, that mental breakdown in the water.

[00:27:39]  Megan Porta 

 Absolutely. Everyone can. Do you ever feel like Google and Pinterest know, too? Like, if I have hard feelings toward any platform, it’s almost like they know my heart and they’re like, ooh, I’m onto Megan. Yes. I am not gonna serve you, but if you have good feelings toward the platform, then good things come to you. I don’t know, it’s just kind of a mental game that I’ve played over the years.

[00:28:02]  Megan Keno 

 I think that’s the funniest thing. It’s like it knows, like, the walls.

[00:28:06]  Megan Porta 

 Know the walls have eyes. Be careful what you say. I say this all the time. In my mastermind groups that I run. People will say like, oh, I hate Pinterest. I hate whatever. Fill in the blank, whichever platform they hate. And I, every time I’m like, wait, wait, wait, don’t say that.

[00:28:25]  Megan Keno 

 Don’t say it out loud.

[00:28:26]  Megan Porta 

 Is listening to you. And I am not kidding. And at first people are like, weird. What are you talking about? Pinterest isn’t listening, but Pinterest is listening. I’m not kidding.

[00:28:35]  Megan Keno 

 Yes. Yes, they are. 100%. I am a firm believer because, you know, it’s one of those things. And being the OG, I’ve gone through the Pinterest battle. During my rebrand, I went through the Pinterest battle. Everybody did. But I got tagged by Pinterest during my rebrand and lost all of my traffic because all of my redirects from 10 years of pins were redirecting to my new URL and they spammed my accounts, and all of my Pinterest content was blacklisted, and I had no traffic from Pinterest. It was horrifying, and I’ve never fully recovered.

[00:29:20]  Megan Porta 

 But you have recovered somewhat, I assume.

[00:29:22]  Megan Keno 

 I have recovered somewhat. Yeah. Before that. So, you know, during the. During the pandemic days, especially during those early days, everybody was going to Pinterest. We were all locked in at home. I mean, Pinterest, Pinterest, at one, like, when it first started was, like, most of us, I think, like, 75% of our content, like, traffic generation.

[00:29:41]   

 It was amazing. And then during the pandemic, you know, everybody was in a game. It was. We were oversaturated with Pinterest content. It was still half of my traffic. When I rebranded, it went from 50 to zero. Like that. It was horrifying. I’m like, what is happening? And when I realized that it was. Oh, God, like, huh. And so I had to go through these maturations with Pinterest to. To get it back, but it has still never fully recovered. And. And that was one that, like, I have a VA. She does my Pinterest. I’m like, my heart broke so much. I’m like, I can’t look at it anymore.

[00:30:17]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. I don’t blame you that. It is heartbreaking to go through something like that. It’s almost like a. A major life event. Like a. Yeah. A trauma.

[00:30:26]  Megan Keno 

 Yes.

[00:30:26]  Megan Porta 

 Right.

[00:30:27]  Megan Keno 

 Yes. I mean, it’s. It’s. Whether your blog is full time or it’s the hobby, or we. In my house, we joke that it’s the slush fund just for the fun things and stuff. Like, it’s my hobby. I paid to do my hobby. You know, it’s still. It’s traumatic. That is the best way to describe it, because for me, with the rebrand, I put my blood, sweat, tears, money, mental energy into creating an entirely new experience. Experience. And then to get hit by it. Hit by, like, the Pinterest semi truck. It was really hard to go, what’s next? Like, what. What do I do? Next.

[00:31:07]  Megan Porta 

 Oh, I’m so sorry you went through that. I would love to hear about your rebrand, though. What made you consider doing the rebrand and. Yeah, why’d you make the change?

[00:31:17]  Megan Keno 

 Yeah. So Country Cleaver had really kind of in. In my mind, run its course. A lot of people were like, but you’re Country Cleaver. People know you as Country Cleaver. And the name had stuck with me because I lived out in the middle of wheat fields. Like, that’s where I went to college. That’s where my husband grew up.

[00:31:35]   

 That was where our big life dream was to head back to the wheat fields in eastern Washington. And I was this very June Cleaver esque person, which I still am. I just happen to swear a lot. But our lives had changed. We have our boys. We have a family here in western Washington.

[00:31:52]   

 And I realized, like, I could have those country little aspects that I love so much, that little homesteading vibe, but it was about making a home now. And how do I see my life playing out over the next 10 years? I’m thinking long term, what do I. Who am I for the next 10 years? I’m not Country Cleaver per se, anymore. I am homemade home. I am making this home in not where I expected, but where I love all the same. And. And what do I do? I still cook. That is still my main vehicle here because I love it so much. But, you know, life is different than it was, and it was just time for a new name, a new vibe, something that I could see carrying on for the next 10, 15 years.

[00:32:39]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. Reinventing ourselves, I think especially when we’re doing this for so long, is so important, because you mentioned the vibe. You have a new vibe, and you need to be aligned with that vibe. If you’re still working on the old vibe that you don’t feel aligned with again, people are going to know that they’re going to carry through.

[00:32:57]  Megan Keno 

 Yeah.

[00:32:58]  Megan Porta 

 You’re not going to be as authentic. People are going to fall off. So I love that you just knew it was time and you made the leap.

[00:33:05]  Megan Keno 

 And I’m. I’m so glad I did. It’s. It’s led to so many different opportunities and fun things and me taking more control over the vibe, the experience that I want to create and share, and it’s led to nothing but great things.

[00:33:24]  Megan Porta 

 So tell us about the new opportunities. What new opportunities have come your way so.

[00:33:29]  Megan Keno 

 Well, most notably, the big one is I’m currently a cast member on season four of Fox’s Next Level Chef.

[00:33:35]  Megan Porta 

 Oh, my God.

[00:33:36]  Megan Keno 

 Which is absolutely thrilling. And today is today’s episode six. I think of the show and, and I am so grateful that before the rebrand, before I was approached for this opportunity, I thought about quitting the blog. But this is the, this is the long term thing we’re talking about is that creating something sustainable will lead to better things.

[00:34:00]   

 When just when you think you’re like, ah, this isn’t working for me anymore. Well, slow down, pivot, identify what you think is best going to serve you if this is something you truly love. And for me, I stuck it out and have had nothing but good things happen because of it. I actually get a little teary about it because my life changed and because of sticking with this for so long. And the show even, no matter where I end up on the show is still has changed my life. I have met the most amazing people. Like Gordon Ramsay aside, the judges and mentors are incredible people. But I have, well, we joke that it’s 27 people were thrown in a room and literally became family.

[00:34:50]   

 You know, I’ve done retreats with them. I’m going to do a pop up in New York City with them in two weeks. I’m going to be doing another pop up in June here in Washington with a fellow castmates cooking, you know, so it’s like I’ve had my eyes open not just to the people and who they are, but to content creators who I see doing amazing things.

[00:35:10]   

 And it’s like, what can I learn from you? I’ve met professional chefs who are hosting these pop ups that have worked in professional kitchens that I have learned amazing things from. And then I’m a home chef. I’m considered a home chef on the show because I never went to culinary school. But these home chefs that have their own catering businesses and that are moms as well, like the moms on the show.

[00:35:31]   

 No matter which category we were in, we all became incredibly close. We’re business owners, we’re moms, we’re bloggers, we’re social media people. But good things came out of me. Sticking with it with my blog and putting myself out there and just saying yes, that was it. Say yes.

[00:35:47]  Megan Porta 

 And I imagine it was a little bit scary to say yes to this opportunity.

[00:35:52]  Megan Keno 

 Oh, of course, it can be absolutely terrifying. But I think that when you have a strong belief in yourself and even you don’t have to be the best at anything. And I think women, we have a hard time putting ourselves out there when we don’t think that we are good enough. You know, we don’t apply to jobs unless we tick every box.

[00:36:09]   

 You know, that kind of thing. This is kind of that same thing. We have this little bit of maybe self doubt or not confidence. Well, I’m probably not going to do very well, so I’m not going to put myself out there. You don’t know what you’re capable of if you don’t do it.

[00:36:23]   

 Like, I think that that’s the biggest thing. Whether it’s sticking with a blog for 15 years and rebranding and taking those giant leaps or saying yes to opportunities that I don’t know what’s going to happen. I might not win. I might not do this. I might not get very far. You don’t know.

[00:36:39]   

 But also, there are other people watching you. For me, it’s my boys. And again, here we go. Me getting teary. They would never know what could happen if I didn’t say yes to this opportunity. That was the reason I said yes.

[00:36:54]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, yeah. Those things can push us to do scary things and very scary. Yeah. So I was thinking about what you were saying earlier about how Pinterest, you know, like, dinged you basically big time after, and how people might hear that and be like, well, that’s reason not to do it. You know, like, even though my heart’s calling me to do a rebrand on my blog, this happened to Megan.

[00:37:22]   

 So I’m just not gonna do it. But hearing how the rest of your story has played out is so cool and just proof that the Pinterest thing, not a big deal. The grand scope of things, how you are presenting yourself to your boys and showing them to do scary things and meeting all of these amazing people and having the experience that you’re having right now, that is way, way more.

[00:37:47]   

 Well, way more worth it than. Right. You know what I’m trying to say?

[00:37:51]  Megan Keno 

 Absolutely.

[00:37:52]  Megan Porta 

 More important than anything you went through with Pinterest. Am I right?

[00:37:56]  Megan Keno 

 Exactly. Yeah. I mean, if you let these stumbling blocks. And at the, at that time, it was devastating, you know, to go from 50% of my traffic to down to 15% of my traffic from one major platform. I mean, it’s gutting. It’s like, am I. Is my blog financially going to be able to survive? I had the foundation to stick with it. I had the foundation, I had an email list, I had the blog. I had other avenues that I could take that were somewhat solid that I could continue to build off of. Well, this other thing either languished or built itself back up. Has. Has it built itself back up completely no, it hasn’t.

[00:38:36]   

 Pinterest has also changed since then, so I don’t need to kill myself over this one thing. Take the chance and pivot. That’s it. If it’s not, again, if this is not serving, you either find a way to say, okay, how can I make this work and build it back up, or just go, okay, you know, this is what it is.

[00:38:56]   

 It hurts, but there is something better, or, I have an opportunity somewhere else. Don’t languish in it. It’s not going to serve you well in the long term to create a defeatist attitude about it. Yes, it sucks. There’s always going to be something that will come up that you’re like, ugh, what now?

[00:39:17]   

 But you can kind of go, okay, this hurts, but there’s something better that will come out of it.

[00:39:24]  Megan Porta 

 This hurts, but. And the things that can come out of it can be so magical and unexpected. Right? Like, would you ever have imagined that you would be a contestant on Next Level Chef and going through this experience?

[00:39:38]  Megan Keno 

 I mean, to say that an email literally changed my life. An email literally changed my life. And I am. I’m very close with the casting department. We are all very good friends. I saw them two weeks ago in LA with the rest of the castle, you know, but they changed my life. And I’m so grateful for being able to say yes to something that came out of the blue because of the hard work that I had already put out into the universe.

[00:40:02]   

 They’re like, we love your content. We love who you are. We love your authenticity. That was what they grabbed onto. Because just like you say, readers see it, other people will see it. And if you pass the vibe check, great things can happen. But if you’re not yourself, it’s not going to get you anywhere.

[00:40:20]  Megan Porta 

 Wow, Megan, this is so inspiring. I just. Yeah. So many cool things about your journey are motivating, encouraging for older bloggers. Also for newer bloggers. Do you have any specific advice for newer bloggers? Because I know it’s really hard out there for new bloggers. I feel for them. Like, my heart literally hurts for what they go through week to week, month to month, year to year. It’s. It’s hard out there. So what do you have for them?

[00:40:53]  Megan Keno 

 It is. I think, as you go through this journey, and I think that this is something that I struggled with a little bit, is as, like, as my. Before the rebrand and as the original Country Cleaver, you know, I didn’t have a direction I didn’t sit down myself one day and go, who am I? I didn’t have this existential experience. I just started cooking and writing. And that served me very well to solidify who I was. But I think starting with a good foundation and looking to people who have done this before, think of three things about yourself that make yourself unique. Think of three things that you want to grow.
 

 And think of three things that you haven’t done yet that you can start to say yes to. Whether that’s reaching out to new people that are in your sphere or out of your sphere just to learn. If you don’t have the conversations with people, you’ll never learn. And then three things that you just want to get better at.

 And then three things about yourself that are so true to who you are that you can tell people about. Because everybody has a unique story, it can be hard for us to identify what that is about ourself. We need to have a little self reflection. And I think that for new bloggers, the rush to get into the game at this stage can be very daunting.

 If you don’t kind of have a little bit of a path set out, this is where that foundation can come in. Really think about what you want to do, who you are and where you want to grow and go to. It doesn’t have to be complete because the path is never straight. There will be pitfalls. There will be all of those things. But I think if you set yourself a little map just to figure out who you are and go, yeah, this is, this is what will make me sustainable. You can build off that and then you will create your own success.

[00:42:44]  Megan Porta 

 That’s really beautiful. And I love the questions that you laid out. I think rewind. If you’re listening or watching on YouTube, rewind and write those down. Those can be so powerful. And then just keeping them top of mind, too. That’s something I try to do every day. Just read through where do I want to go? If you don’t know where you’re going or have dreams and hopes for your business and your life, how are you ever going to get to those awesome places? If you’re just going about your days.

[00:43:14]  Megan Keno 

 Just getting through, it’s like rowing with one oar. You’re just going to spin in circles. I mean, you don’t have to have it all mapped out. Rarely do people have it all mapped out. You have to be open to the possibilities. But I think if you take those first few steps to go, okay, this is, yeah, this, this is what feels good. I know who I am. I know what piques my interest, and this is what I want to learn about. And you will set yourself up for a much longer career in blogging if you stay open to those possibilities. But just this is where you’re not doing it for doing it sake, because if you do that, you’re just not going to get. You’re not going to get anywhere long term.

[00:43:57]  Megan Porta 

 So many good tidbits in here. Authenticity is something that you said you talked about.

 And then also just setting yourself up for success so you can create a sustainable long game business. And authenticity ties into that as well.

[00:44:13]  Megan Keno 

 Yeah. Intention set your intention. It sounds, you know, very hippie, very woo woo and stuff, but, you know, it’s. If you, if you have the intention to do something, you’re more likely to accomplish that as opposed to just throwing the spaghetti at the wall and seeing if it sticks.

[00:44:29]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. Megan, thank you for sharing your journey. I am so inspired by you and everything that you’ve been through and you’ve overcome some obstacles and you have stuck with it. So thank you for joining us and sharing all of this today. Absolutely.

[00:44:44]  Megan Keno 

 Yes. You guys as well. Thank you so much.

[00:44:46]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. Do you have either a favorite quote or words of inspiration to end on?

[00:44:51]  Megan Keno 

 Gosh, why do I get emotional when it comes to the personal stuff? I think the central theme, the best advice I ever got was don’t be driftwood. You know, this comes with the setting, the intention. This comes with not letting moments pass you by. Don’t just let the waves carry you. Sometimes you have to. You have to do the work. And if you’re not driftwood, you’ll. You’ll make it through the current.

[00:45:12]  Megan Porta 

 Amazing. So simple, but powerful, right?

[00:45:15]  Megan Keno 

 Exactly, Exactly.

[00:45:16]  Megan Porta 

 Love it. Don’t be driftwood, people. We’ll put together a show notes page for you. Megan, if you want to go peek at those, you can head to eatblogtalk.com/homemadehome. So, Megan, tell everyone where they can find you.

[00:45:30]  Megan Keno 

 Absolutely. You guys can find me at my blog, homemadehome.com all social media is homemade.home.megan. You can find me there as well. Also, my new edition of my cookbook, Cast Iron Gourmet, is officially back on Amazon. That’s a whole another saga in itself. Let me tell you to go. Oh, man. I could talk your ear off about this one.

[00:45:55]  Megan Porta 

 All right.

[00:45:56]  Megan Keno 

 But the new edition, the new hardcover edition of Cast Iron Gourmet is officially back on Amazon. Perfectly timed with the Next Level Chef. Which Next level Chef Season 4 is airing right now on Fox on Thursday nights at 8pm 7 Central. And I can’t wait for people to continue to watch the journey because it is a doozy.

[00:46:17]  Megan Porta 

 Oh, my gosh. So that’s on tonight. Today’s episode.

[00:46:19]  Megan Keno 

 It is on. Yes, it is. It’s on tonight.

[00:46:20]  Megan Porta 

 I’m totally gonna watch it.

[00:46:21]  Megan Keno 

 I’m so excited. Okay, go watch the backlog on Hulu. It’s available on Hulu and Disney as well.

[00:46:28]  Megan Porta 

 Okay. I am doing it. I’m gonna be your biggest fan, Megan.

[00:46:31]  Megan Keno 

 I love it.

[00:46:32]  Megan Porta 

 Best of luck to you with all of that. Thank you, Megan. And thank you again for for being here. Thanks for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

[00:46:32]  Outro

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. Don’t forget to rate and review Eat Blog Talk on your favorite podcast player. Thank you. And I will see you next time.